Calls for proposals for Cape’s unfinished highways

The unfinished highways on the western, central and eastern side of the Foreshore Freeway Precinct have been part of the city landscape for nearly five decades now. File photo: David Ritchie

Cape Town – Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille has challenged prospective investors and developers to come up with a solution that will address the congestion in the Foreshore Freeway Precinct. Affordable housing opportunities must form part of the proposals.

De Lille, speaking at the MyCiTi foreshore staging area at FW de Klerk Boulevard on Tuesday morning, said the City of Cape Town intends issuing a document calling for solutions on July 8.

“The unfinished highways on the western, central and eastern side of the Foreshore Freeway Precinct have been part of the city landscape for nearly five decades now. They are the theme of many urban legends – we have all heard imaginative stories about how they came about and why they were built, seemingly leading to nowhere,” said De Lille.

Engineers designed the unfinished freeways in the 1970s, and De Lille says the traffic flowing into and out of the city was not on the level that the city was experiencing today.

The project to complete the unfinished freeways was subsequently abandoned, mainly due to a lack of funds and because the volume of traffic flowing was too low to warrant further investment.

“Now about 50 years later these skeleton-like structures still stand unfinished and unused, in the midst of horrific traffic congestion. Not only are they useless, other than for film shoots, they are also preventing the development of prime city-owned land – known as the Foreshore Freeway Precinct – that is locked in under and between the existing highways and the harbour,” she said.

The city intends to leverage the city-owned land beneath the unfinished bridges for development.

Part of the conditions for the development will be that it include the funds to complete the unfinished bridges, alleviate congestion and provide…